well after playing AOE for awhile i bought The War Chiefs expansion so when i went to install it i get an error saying that regualr age of empires was never installed which makes no sense since i also have been playing The Asian Dynasties.

I'd recommend uninstalling both the base game and The Asian Dynasties, and then reinstall in this order: Base Game -> TWC -> TAD. Sometimes installing TAD first can cause issues, as they didn't come out in that order.